Model Railroading > Coal Loads?

Anyone know of coal loads that are NOT heavy.
I like to run a 50 car coal train, with loads the tain is to heavy.
Where can I find them.

What scale? If HO, I like to use the loads by LBF. They have loads for many different HO scale hoppers.


Brian

If you're running the 1940's vintage 55 ton double bay hoppers, Accurail makes plastic coal loads (fits Accurail and Athearn) that are lightweight and easily removable with a magnet, which they also sell. You insert a couple of steel ball bearings (supplied) for magnatism purposes. You could spiff them up by adding "coal" to them similar to laying road ballest, but they look fine out of the bag. Loads come 12/package either for Accurail or Athearn. This is how I found out there are length/width differences between the Accurail, Athearn, MDC-Roundhouse and Stewart models of this prototype, which apparently looked similar across manufacturers, etc, but actually were different.

Could you make your own? Some .030 styrene and ground up real coal, white glue....

Kennedy

Expanding on Kennedy's post.... Start with a ¾” sheet of the stiff styrofoam sheet. This is the white stuff with relatively large open cells that is used to stick dried flowers into (not the pink/blue wall insulating stuff). Cut out a rectangle to fit the hopper. Once fitted to the hopper, make a template so the size can be repeated. Shape the top to look like a typical coal load using a knife or file. Paint with flat black and let dry. Coat the top with a spray on glue and lightly sprinkle on your favorite scale bulk coal (e.g. Woodland Scenics Co). Spray with 50/50 white glue/water to set the coal. The black paint helps to strengthen the stryofoam and allows you to put only a light coat of the bulk coal on. Plus, if a chunk of coal gets knocked off, you don’t have the white showing through.

Advantages:
1. Cheap.
2. Quick and easy to make
3. Each load can be made to look unique.
4. They weigh practically nothing.
5. They are easy to install and remove... I use a simple .032 L shaped wire to hook them and pull them out “on line”.
6. They are a perfect fit (assuming you cut them correctly

There is a company called Blue Mountain Hobbies that make HO coal loads using a light foam base.
They are ready to use and are available in more than 25+ configurations, to fit the most popular manufactures kits.
Retail is approx. $5.50 per pr.
I believe they are distributed only through Bowser, but can be found in some retail stores.
(Like All Aboard Model Railroad in Torrance, CA)
Sorry for the self promotion.

Roland
WP805D

Try dpu's I check the speed of my locos and put two near, or on the end that are just a littel slower then headend power seems to work well for me even up hill.

I've done the same thing nsduprr mentioned, except I used the pink insulation foam. Its a little messier when your shaping the coal load but its not bad. Definately look better than anything you can buy on the market today, plus they're really cheap to make.

-Mike

I did as nsdpurr did, except I made a hot wire die to cut the shape and then cut to length and bevels on each end. Then I used real coal from Arizona Rock to pur on the load. But I didn't seal it with the glue, because it would take away from the glossy sheen that coal has.

westernpacific Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Try dpu's I check the speed of my locos and put
> two near, or on the end that are just a littel
> slower then headend power seems to work well for
> me even up hill.
>
>

I was about to say, I have the opposite problem in that most coal loads aren't heavy enough. I make mine heavy enough that a 25 car train won't move up a 2.5% grade without some pooooshers on the rear. If you're into realistic operations, keep those coal hoppers heavy and give those trains a good shove.

KN Tower

I have tried many coal load manufactures and the best I've found is Haybros garage they might not be the cheepest and they appear to be light (non Plaster type) but they look great !

http://www.haybrosgarage.com/

Thank you, everyone for the info......................